


failure's a stranger we all dream about

by searchingforstars



Series: febuwhump/fluff 2020! [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, College, College Student Peter Parker, Gen, Homesickness, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Peter Parker, Panic Attacks, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Is At MIT, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Supportive Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22806490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchingforstars/pseuds/searchingforstars
Summary: Peter’s professors all seem to know Tony. Instead of calling Peter out for turning in the odd piece of homework late or getting distracted in class like they might do for anyone else, they give him pats on the back in hallways and tell him fondly that, “Tony must be so proud of you, following in his footsteps.”Tony wouldn’t be, though. Not if he knew how much effort Peter was having to put in to keep his head above the water.He just wants Tony to be proud of him.He has to work harder - that’s the only way.--or, Peter’s college workload and anxiety makes him worry that maybe he’s not good enough for Tony.
Relationships: Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: febuwhump/fluff 2020! [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622380
Comments: 58
Kudos: 629
Collections: The Best Irondad/Spiderson Fics, The Best Peter Parker Whump Fics





	failure's a stranger we all dream about

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompts:  
> 17\. missing you (febufluff)  
> 18\. revealed secret (febuwhump)  
> 19\. creators choice (febuwhump - i've gone for some good old relatable college stress)  
> 20\. mental disorder (febuwhump)
> 
> i started writing this when i was feeling stressed out and overwhelmed with uni last year and i just wanted my own tony there to help me through it but it was pretty incoherent tbh. it's had a major overhaul now and here we are!! enjoy :))

The only thing coursing through Peter’s veins is Red Bull.

May would probably go into cardiac arrest if she could see how many empty cans of the stuff Peter has littered on the desk around him. It's not like he can help it. He just burns through it so fast and he _really_ needs to stay awake tonight - his Circuits and Electronics assignment isn’t going to write itself, as much as he wishes it would.

So, here he is, with an assignment due tomorrow and an empty word document in front of him. The questions on his laptop screen are blurring together, burning into his eyeballs in the dim late-night light of the library and he has to blink a couple of times to refocus.

_Which of the following is an effect of reflective radio frequency power?_

_What is the frequency of the source if the capacitive reactance is 0.06?_

_Compared to bipolar transistors, field effect transistors are normally characterized by what?_

He knows all this. He does. Or at least, he _should_ know all this. He should be able to do it in his sleep. He’s been doing this stuff with Tony in his lab since he was fifteen. He’s had adults telling him that he’s a genius his entire life.

So why is it so hard to think?

He just has to focus. That’s all it is. He hasn’t been putting enough work in lately, letting himself get distracted.

He takes another gulp of his Red Bull determinedly as he feels his eyes start to slip shut again.

If his hands are shaking from the caffeine as he picks up his calculator then nobody needs to know.

Peter glances up wildly to a tap on his shoulder.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he’s gotten through four pages of his assignment questions and one more can of Red Bull.

At this point, he wonders whether it would be cheaper to kick the Red Bull habit and just take up drugs instead. Tony and May have been encouraging him to experiment in college. He thinks they probably just mean meeting new people, putting himself out there, maybe having a drink or two every so often. Drugs might be a bit extreme then.

Another tap on his shoulder.

The librarian is standing behind him. Her name’s Gale.

She really is very nice. Her greying hair and rounded glasses remind him of May’s mother that he only knew for a few years before she passed away when he was younger. She's always the one that has to ask him to leave night after night when the clock strikes midnight. Usually, he’s the only one left. Especially on a Thursday night like tonight, when everyone seems to be out partying to celebrate Friday’s imminent arrival.

Peter wonders whether May and Tony would be disappointed that all he’s really managed to accomplish in the way of meeting new people and putting himself out there is being on first name terms with the librarian.

Who's he kidding? Of course they would. He's been doing a lot more to disappoint them than just that. 

“Mister Parker, you know I have to tell you to leave.”

Peter sighs. He still has at least two pages of questions left to go. “Yeah, Gale. I know. Thanks.”

She watches as he gathers his things, and as he does, her eyes sweep over the cans of the Red Bull on the desk and pointedly up towards the sign on the wall reading “S _trictly NO Food or Drink_.” She never explicitly mentions it and Peter’s grateful because he’s not sure how he’d make it through without the pick-me-up, but he’s sure the second he goes anywhere near her library books with it rather than just his own laptop he’ll be hearing all about it. Especially if it’s her precious history section. He swears she spends half her time arranging, then rearranging it, seemingly for the hell of it - hardly anyone ever ventures into that section of the library.

Peter sheepishly gathers all of his mess into his arms and dumps it into his unzipped backpack, along with his laptop. The metal of the empty cans clink together as he slings his bag over one shoulder.

“Get out of here and get some _rest_ ,” Gale tells him pointedly, shooing him towards the exit.

“I will,” Peter says, nodding dutifully. He hopes that he isn’t lying through his teeth. Getting some rest sounds great. A faraway and unrealistic ideal maybe, but great all the same. It’s a shame all his mind can focus on is the rest of the assignment still sitting unfinished in his laptop files. “Have a good night.”

She gives him a wave as he steps out into the cool night air and as the doors shut behind him, she turns back towards the stack of books she’d been shelving behind her desk with a sad sort of smile. She always looks just a little bit sorry for him and Peter isn’t sure why.

He’s surely far from the only student at MIT who's overestimated their own skill and fallen victim to it.

* * *

The thing is, Peter really just didn’t expect college to be this _hard_.

That sounds kind of obnoxious whenever he thinks about it. Of course, he knew MIT was going to be a challenge. That was why Tony kept pushing him for it, telling him that it would extend him and allow him to ‘spread his wings’ in a way that not many colleges would.

He just didn’t exactly expect to be spending almost every night in the library.

He didn’t expect every new assignment to feel like a new weight on his chest until suddenly it’s the middle of the semester and he can’t breathe from the stress.

He didn’t expect to be _falling behind_.

He could keep up in high school without even having to try. He could skip studying, go out as Spider-Man and turn up to school the next day on barely a wink of sleep and with a freshly stitched up bullet wound in his side and still ace all his tests. He had Tony and May at his side, supporting him every step of the way.

Now they’re miles and miles away and he misses them. He tries not to wallow in it. He doesn’t want to look like a fool. He definitely doesn’t want to have to return to New York with his tail between his legs and have to admit to Tony and Pepper that actually they’ve made a mistake naming him as a joint heir to Stark Industries, that he can’t even handle a basic college education let alone running an entire company - especially one that’s worth _billions_.

It doesn't help that all of his professors seem to know Tony either. They don’t call Peter out for turning in the odd piece of homework late or getting distracted in class like they might do for anyone else. Instead, they give him pats on the back in hallways and tell him fondly that, “Tony must be so proud of you, following in his footsteps.”

Tony wouldn’t be, though. Not if he knew how much effort Peter was having to put in to keep his head above the water.

He just wants Tony to be proud of him.

He has to work harder - that’s the only way.

* * *

Completely disregarding his earlier resolution, Peter falls asleep in class the next morning.

He made it through the first fifteen minutes at least. Enough time to turn in his assignment as he stepped through the doors of the lecture hall (even if he did have to stay up until four am to do it, along with the Computation Structures homework he forgot about) and find a seat.

He ends up to a girl he’s fairly sure is called Angela. He’s paired up with her for one of their classes. Nanoelectronics, maybe? He’s convinced that she harbours a very strong dislike for him (he doesn’t like to admit that it’s probably because he never really gets his share of their work done in time) but it sure beats sitting through a two-hour lecture by himself. He’s always at more of a risk of nodding off if he holes away alone in a corner of the room.

But as it turns out, even sitting next to Angela and the furious tapping of her nails against the keyboard as she struggles to get down everything from the PowerPoint at the front of the room isn’t enough to keep Peter awake.

“And now we’re going to move on to…” Peter zones out the rest of the sentence just as their lecturer is just foraying into something about electrical current. He gives in to his losing battle with consciousness and falls asleep with his head in his hands.

“... will be all for today. I’ll see you all next week.”

Peter jerks awake fifty minutes later to the sound of rustling and movement around him, hundreds of people stowing their laptops and notes away in their bags to go.

Angela is staring at him, clearly waiting for him to stow his desk back up so she can get past. He fumbles a little drowsily as he puts everything away, and as he stands she steps past him and towards the exit of the row. He stares down at his note page for today’s lecture which has nothing but the date scrawled at the top.

“Hey, wait, um, Angela?”

She turns around.

“It’s Angelica, actually.”

Peter cringes. Shit. “Sorry, I knew that, I swear,” he says, trying to sound as confident as he can. Angela (No, _Angelica_ ) cocks one eyebrow. She’s clearly seeing right through it. Peter feels his cheeks heat up. “I was just wondering whether, uh, do you reckon I could get your notes for today?”

She stares at him incredulously for a second.

“Get lost, Parker.”

* * *

Peter’s living in a single room this year, courtesy of Tony.

He wasn’t a massive fan of the idea at first, and at the moment he’s honestly not even sure why Tony’s bothering to pay for it when over the last month or so he’s been spending so much time in the library. He figures Tony would have been better off just forking out for a sleeping bag for him to set up under one of the tables instead (he doesn’t think Gale would like that all that much though).

It was their compromise. Peter let Tony pay for him to have a single room, and he got to carry on Spider-Manning when he’s needed. Sure, it’s not exactly the nightly patrols and throwing himself in the direction of danger every time his spidey sense so much as prickles like he might get up to in New York - but maybe that’s a good thing. At least he’s still in control. He can head out whenever if he needs to get involved, and return to patch himself up, however bloody he may be, without scaring one of his poor fellow already-stressed-out-enough-as-it-is undergraduate students.

Sure, maybe it means that everything seems a little quiet. There isn’t the sound of May’s soapy TV shows that she loves floating through from the living room or FRIDAY humming in the walls. He’s not used to the quiet, to being alone. Ned’s here though, so at least he doesn’t have to miss him. He lives a few floors down, rooming with a guy called Daniel - he’s cool enough and he doesn’t seem to mind Peter hanging around their room. Peter went to a few of the O-Week activities with them. Sometimes they all get together and play video games in the common lounge on a Saturday night.

So he’s not lonely. Definitely not.

He doesn’t even have time to think about being lonely.

It’s just sometimes, he needs to see a familiar face, and then he’s really glad that Ned’s here as well.

“ _Dude_ , I asked Angela - uh, no, Angelica, for her notes for that circuits lecture I just had and she just totally refused to help me. That’s like, uncalled for, right?”

Ned doesn’t even turn around at the sound of Peter’s voice as he walks straight in the door of the dorm room.

“Ever heard of knocking?”

“Yeah, yeah, I will next time, promise. But I need validation.”

Ned shrugs and spins around in his chair to face Peter. He looks well-rested, no dark circles under his eyes like Peter caught on himself in the reflection of the glass doors as he stepped into his lecture this morning. He kicks his feet up onto the bed. “Okay. Well, I need context."

Peter grimaces a little and Ned stares at him accusingly. Peter groans, taking a seat heavily at the end of Ned’s bed and throwing his head back against the wall petulantly. “She literally straight up just looked at me and was like _no_.”

Ned doesn’t look all that sympathetic. “Did you fall asleep in class again?”

Peter nods reluctantly. Ned thinks it over.

“I mean, it’s shit, but it’s also kinda your fault. Sorry to break it to you, but you really gotta stop doing that, man.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m working on it.” He groans. “Why did nobody tell us that college was going to be this _hard_?”

Ned’s forehead creases as if he’s trying to work something out. When he speaks, it’s slowly. “I don’t think it’s been too bad so far…”

_Great. Peter’s just the stupid one then._

“Is everything going okay with you?”

Peter nods out of reflex. He’s never found anything academic difficult in his life. He can’t admit it now. Deflect, deflect, deflect. “Oh yeah, course. Just a little stressed. I keep leaving homework until the last minute, shit like that.”

Ned nods like he understands. Peter’s not sure he does.

* * *

“Mister Parker, could I speak to you for a minute?”

Peter’s heart begins thumping unnecessarily forcefully when his biological engineering professor calls this out as he’s leaving class a few days later.

He’s more than a little bit intimidated, to be honest. Not only is the man singling him out of the hundreds of students flooding out of their lecture hall right now, but he’s friends with _Bruce_. Bruce was the one who suggested he take this Ethics for Engineers paper back when he was course planning with Tony. Tony insisted that if he was going to be granted an exception to take five courses in his first semester then one of them had to be an elective - something he could kick back in a cruise through a little.

Bruce had suggested something like this, no matter how much Tony protested that he was absolutely not going to lose Peter to anything to do with biology. But Bruce said that William Nicholson was _the_ bioengineering professor to learn from, and now here Peter is, wiping his sweaty palms against his jeans before shoving them into his pockets altogether, standing in front of the man himself.

“I - uh, yes, Professor Nicholson?”

The man smiles kindly. “Call me William, Peter.”

Peter just nods stiffly. “Is everything okay?”

“I just wanted to have a quick chat with you about your grades so far. I know the first semester of college can be tricky to navigate and I’m just a little concerned about how you’re faring.”

“I’m fine,” Peter blurts, nodding his head furiously. “I’m fine, honest.”

His professor looks unconvinced. “I have to say, when Bruce Banner got into contact with me before the year started, and he told me that he knew this brilliant kid starting college and taking one of my papers, I-”

“I get it,” Peter breaks in. He doesn’t need to hear the rest. He _knows_ he’s a disappointment. “Turns out I’m not as brilliant as everyone thinks I am.”

Professor Nicholson raises his eyebrows over the top of his glasses. “That’s not what I was going to say at all Peter. What I was going to say is that I don’t think he was wrong, not in the slightest. I think you just need to keep your head screwed on straight and maybe just pull your socks up a little, put a bit more work in.”

 _Put a bit more work in_.

Peter doesn’t know how much he has left in him. He doesn’t know how he could physically be doing more in a day.

“I - I, um,” Peter stumbles, trying to wrap his head around the words. “Uh, okay. What can I do, how do I put more work in?”

 _I can’t_.

He’s already spending practically every waking minute either studying, or performing the basic functions necessary for human life like eating and showering, whilst simultaneously worrying about not studying.

_I can’t put any more work in. I might drown._

“I don’t know how to put this lightly. You’re getting grades for attendance but everything else so far has been handed in late, or otherwise, may I say, completed fairly mediocrely. I don’t know if others are willing to let that slide, but I for one, am not. I understand this class isn’t worth as many units as others, and you may not view it as equally important, but if you carry along this projected path you’re setting for yourself, you’ll fail this class, Peter.”

_Fail._

_Fail. Fail. Fail._

Peter’s never failed a class before. He’s never even failed a test (apart from _once_ when he was in a medically induced coma after nearly drowning in the Hudson the night before but he really thinks he should have been given a make-up opportunity for that).

He can’t fail.

Peter Parker doesn’t fail. Peter Parker is a genius - that’s what everyone’s always told him. Has he been fooling the people around him for years? Tricking them into thinking he’s smarter than he is?

Starks’ definitely don’t fail. That’s a fact. Peter’s expected to run Stark Industries one day. He can’t do that with a failed class imprinted onto his college manuscript forever.

Tony will be so disappointed in him.

“I can’t - I, no. I can’t fail, s-sir. I really can’t.”

Professor Nicholson’s mouth settles into a regretful line. “You won’t, necessarily. I just thought it would be wise to warn you. I can assign you a few pieces of extra-credit work if you wish, but mostly I just need to see better work. Get a few Bs, maybe an A, and that should pull you up over the line.”

“O-Okay, I can do that.”

_Can I?_

“Thanks for chatting with me, Peter. I just thought you should know.”

Peter nods dumbly. He thinks maybe he stumbles out a goodbye but he’s not too sure, his breathing stuttering and catching in his throat as he hastily turns to exit the room as quickly as he can.

He’s a failure.

The hallway outside the lecture hall is full of students waiting for their next class to start. They’re all unfamiliar faces, he doesn’t recognise any of them, and he pushes his way through people. His heart is still racing in his chest.

He’s failing.

He just needs to get away, but he can’t remember where he’s going or what class he has next. His phone screen blurs in front of him when he tugs it out of his pocket, and he hopes he’s not crying because god that would be embarrassing.

His breathing quickens again. He’s panicking, he knows he is. He’s well acquainted with this feeling, the way his chest contracts and his mouth dries out and the world spins around him. The way his limbs tingle and his mind narrows in on one specific thing.

Failure. Failure. Failure.

He shoves open the door to the first bathrooms he stumbles upon, keeping his head down and hoping that he doesn’t draw too much attention to himself. He nearly knocks someone over in his rush to hide himself away inside one of the stalls, and he bumbles out a stupid sounding apology before he slumps down on a toilet seat and locks the door firmly behind him.

Nothing seems to be working as Peter screws his eyes closed and tries to force his breathing back down to a semi-normal rate and ease the ache in his chest. The word _failure_ keeps floating around in his head, emblazoned to the front of his mind. He may as well have it tattooed on his forehead.

The only semi-coherent thought he can conjure up in his panic-addled mind is that maybe he isn’t cut out for this after all.

He has to admit, that when he finally unlocks the toilet stall half an hour later and gets a good look at himself in the mirror, he’s a certified mess. Red blotchy cheeks, puffy eyes standing out against the dark circles underneath them, his hair manic from tugging it in his grip.

He even _looks_ like a failure.

* * *

The only reason Peter leaves his room for the dining hall later that night is because he’s run out of ramen and microwave burritos.

He’s had a reminder scrawled on his whiteboard since last week to pencil in time to go grocery shopping, but he’s spent day after day ignoring said reminder so he’s landed himself in this situation. Out of venturing down the road to the grocery store or just across the quad to the dining hall, this seemed like the lesser of two evils.

It would be kind of nice to not be alone right now, but Ned and Daniel ate earlier - or at least that’s what Ned said when Peter had sent him a text to ask half an hour ago. The two of them did used to invite Peter to the dining hall with them. They’d all meet at the front doors of the hall and go together, but they stopped a while ago when Peter started declining the invitations more than he was accepting them. He doesn’t blame them, really.

He’s just pushing the doors open, the smell of buffet chicken tenders hitting his nose when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out, hoping that maybe it’s the email with his extra-credit assignments from Professor Nicholson. He could add that to his already extensive to-do list for tonight.

Instead, it’s just a text from Tony.

_Is now an okay time to call?_

An emotion that Peter can’t quite figure out settles heavily at the pit of his stomach. Maybe it’s something akin to dread. Either way, he’s suddenly not all that hungry. Tony can read him like an open book - even over the phone. Speaking to him is an absolute no go.

 _I’m having dinner. Talk later_ , he types out in reply, before glancing back over it and adding a _:)_ for good measure at the end. He hits send and turns his phone off. He tells himself he has too much work to do tonight to afford being distracted, anyway.

* * *

His phone rings again the next morning as he’s walking to class, interrupting the music he’s got blaring from his headphones.

He’s running on an hour of sleep. He got a head start on the coding for his algorithms class and finished half of the extra-credit work that Professor Nicholson emailed through to him. It would have been easier if Peter could concentrate without the pen he was gripping trembling the whole time with his pent-up nerves, but he thinks he managed to do an okay job.

He glances down at the screen blearily and isn’t at all surprised to see Tony’s name flashing across the top. The man didn’t even bother to text first this time.

Peter hits decline and types out another text.

_Heading into class rn, sorry_

He presses play on his music again and wonders how he’s going to stay awake in class without it.

* * *

Tony calls for the third time when Peter’s lying in bed a couple of nights later.

He has a pile of work waiting for him on his desk, but he’s so beyond tired at this point that he figured a quick nap can’t hurt before he sits down and starts to work through it all. He might even head down to the library. He hasn’t seen Gale in a few days, and the guy in the room next door to his has been arguing with his girlfriend on the phone for an _hour_ now.

He doesn’t even have an excuse to text Tony tonight.

Friday nights are the one night he left wide open - when he doesn’t have night labs or study groups or some extracurricular that he signed up for at activities fair but hasn’t found time to attend in weeks. He did that on purpose, so that Friday’s were the night that he could let loose and have fun.

He misses the days when he’d been optimistic enough to think that would even be a possibility.

Peter knows that Tony knows that he’s free right now. Pepper texted him a photo a few weeks ago of a copy of his own college timetable taped to the fridge at the lake house.

He wants so badly to talk to Tony - to pick up the phone and hear that comforting voice that he’s been missing. But he can’t.

He’s a failure. Tony wouldn’t even _want_ to talk to him if he knew that the kid he’s entrusting his entire company - the one he’s completely turned around with his bare hands and sheer will - can’t even handle one of the most necessary of human experiences: college.

He hits decline and shoves his phone under his pillow.

* * *

“You need to call Tony.”

Peter groans. It was a refreshing change when his phone rang this morning and it was May’s name instead of Tony’s, and he picked it up because Ned’s gone home for the weekend and honestly he’s just really starting to miss human contact. The last he had was ten hours ago when Gale ushered him out of the library with a warm pat on the shoulder and a warning that Red Bull will rot his teeth before he hits twenty-one.

Now, once he realises what the call is about, he’s kind of regretting picking it up in the first place.

“Morning to you too,” Peter grumbles as he paces impatiently back and forth in front of his microwave waiting for his breakfast burrito to be done. He finally made a trip to the grocery store yesterday.

“I’m serious Peter,” May says. “Why am I getting agitated texts from Tony every hour telling me that you’re ignoring him and asking if I’ve heard from you yet? You know I love him but there’s only so much Tony I can handle at a time. I have no idea how Pepper does it.”

“I’m not _ignoring_ him… I just haven’t had the time.”

May hums a sort of disapproving sound like she doesn’t quite believe him.

“I’m not! Seriously,” Peter protests. “I’m busy, that’s all it is. Tony’s just reading too much into things. You know what he’s like.”

“Well, you need to find time in your incredibly busy college student schedule of partying and studying to call him, okay? I’m worried he’s constantly about one step away from getting in the car and kidnapping you to bring you back here himself.”

Peter groans.

“Not that I would mind that at all,” May continues. “I haven’t seen you since when, your birthday?”

“I’ll be home soon, I promise. I just gotta get all my work done first.”

“I’m going to hold you to that,” May tells him. Peter can practically hear the smile on her face and he misses her so much. “Call Tony. And I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I will. Love you too.”

* * *

Conveniently, Peter’s much too busy to get around to calling Tony for the rest of the day - or at least that’s what he tells himself. He turns his phone off anyway, just in case. Distractions are extremely unwelcome right now.

He ends up holed in the library by two in the afternoon, attempting to finish his extra-credit work and study for his nanoelectronics quiz.

He has a panic attack at seven when he realises that there’s no way he’s going to get any of this done in time. He can barely even read the words in front of him in his textbook, his brain jumbling them together, unable to sort the information into anything vaguely coherent.

Gale brings him out a cup of tea from the staffroom at eleven, despite her own ‘no food or drink’ signs she enjoys pointing out to Peter. It’s warm and comforting, and for a second Peter can almost pretend that he’s at home instead of sitting in the corner of a soulless college library.

By the time she has to send him back to his dorm at midnight, the cup of tea is empty in front of him and his eyes are drooping but his list of work he still has to get done seems just as long as when he started.

* * *

Peter feels like his entire life is just stuck on loop.

He gets up, drags himself to lectures and labs, sits in class and tries not to fall asleep, takes notes, does homework, studies for tests, steals as much sleep as he can in-between all that and then does it all again.

Sometimes, he catches himself thinking about Muffin, the pet hamster his elementary class used to have. Shy and quiet Peter would always end up by himself sitting at the table at the back of the classroom no one else wanted to sit at. It was next to Muffin’s cage though, and whenever he inevitably finished his work early he’d just sit, enthralled and watch the hamster run around and around on its neon green running wheel.

He feels a bit like that at the moment. Always running, not really getting anywhere. Except, he keeps tripping, struggling, can’t quite manage to pull himself back up onto his feet.

He’s leaving a lab that afternoon, still feeling like poor old Muffin on the running wheel because he can barely remember anything that was said and he knows he’s going to have to go back and re-read the entire chapter later tonight, when he hears excited murmuring around him.

He pays it no mind at first. The only thing he’s focused on is heading back to his dorm to grab a granola bar as a late breakfast. He didn’t have time to eat anything before he rushed out the door this morning.

Then, he hears a familiar name.

“Dude! My roommate just texted me, he said they saw _Tony Stark_ walking across the quad.”

Peter freezes. His brain short-circuits a little bit but he snaps himself out of his thoughts to try and rejoin the physical world around him to hear what’s going on. The chattering continues.

“No way. Do you reckon he’s doing a lecture?”

“Someone else I know said they saw him getting out of a car like an hour ago.”

If he shows up to one of his lectures this afternoon and Tony’s standing up there, guest lecturing or some shit, like he always threatened to when he was wallowing on about how much he was going to miss Peter when he left for college, Peter might actually die.

When May mentioned that Tony was on the verge of coming up here himself, Peter didn’t think she was being _serious_.

Someone nudges him in the side as he grabs for the door handle, suddenly wanting nothing more than to get out of the building - but also cautious of venturing anywhere he could run into Tony.

“Hey, Parker. You know Tony Stark, right?”

Peter glances around. He doesn’t even recognise the guy that’s asking him. He wonders whether he should know his name as well.

“I, uh, yeah I do,” he manages to get out as eloquently as he can manage. “No idea what he’s doing here though,” he adds.

Secretly, as much as he doesn't want to think about it, he thinks he might have a fair idea.

Tony must know Peter's failing.

Professor Nicholson could have spoken to Bruce. Bruce probably would have told Tony. That's the only possible reason.

What if Tony’s only been trying to get hold of him to tell him how disappointed he is in him, how he knows now that he’s made a mistake naming Peter as one of his heirs? What if he wants Peter gone, never wants to be associated with someone who doesn’t even have the brains to pass his first-year college _elective_?

Somewhere in the back of his brain, Peter knows he must be overthinking. Tony loves him. He shouldn't be feeling this insecure about their relationship at this point. But even knowing this, it doesn't help the fact that Peter really doesn’t want to have to face him. If he could go forever not having to see Tony and own up to his horrifically embarrassing failures then he would. But somehow, he’s pretty certain that Tony will never let that happen.

Tony’s always been able to smell his mistakes from a mile off.

It used to be a good thing. It used to keep him safe. Now though, as he makes the first few tentative steps along the pavement that will eventually lead him straight to his dorm it just makes Peter feel like he’s headed off to the gallows.

The inevitable death of Tony’s pride in him.

He’s expecting it, knows what’s waiting for him behind his door when he makes it back to his dorm, but it still shocks him back a little, jarring to see Tony perched on the edge of his stupidly uncomfortable single bed. He’s in jeans and a sweater, nothing ostentatious, baseball cap and sunglasses he’d obviously had on resting on top of the nightstand. Clearly, he still managed to get recognised anyway and Peter’s sort of glad. It gave him a bit of a heads up even if he still feels woefully prepared to face the man that he’s been dodging calls from all week.

“W-What? Tony, uh, what are you doing here?” Peter stammers. He tears his eyes away from Tony and he can’t bear to look back, focusing on the ground instead, how the fraying carpet scuffs beneath his shoes.

Tony makes a small sort of surprised noise. “That’s not exactly the greeting I was hoping for, but I guess I can't exactly expect much when you’ve been ignoring me all week.”

“M’not ignoring you,” Peter mumbles in reply. He wishes Tony would just cut to the chase. They both know why he’s here. The longer he stands here in the doorway the more he feels like his heart’s about to explode out of his chest from how rapidly it’s beating. He knows Tony’s disappointed in him. He just needs to hear it so he can start forcing himself to come to terms with it.

He hopes he doesn’t cry. His eyes are already aching whenever he blinks from all the late nights and time staring at his laptop.

“You blowing off every one of my calls kinda sent me a different message,” Tony says, clearly trying to keep his voice nonchalant. “I was a little worried. Thought I better get up here, see how my favourite college student is going. Make sure you hadn’t gotten too carried away with Spidey and bled out on the floor of your dorm by yourself. Oh _no_ \- wait. I didn’t have to worry about that, because you picked up May’s calls. Just not mine.”

Peter’s cheeks heat up at being so blatantly called out. Tony still doesn’t sound mad yet. Just confused. A little hurt, maybe. He didn’t mean to hurt Tony.

“I just couldn’t… I dunno. Couldn’t speak to you. Not right now.”

The confusion on Tony’s face deepens. “Any reason why?”

Peter takes a closer look at Tony’s face. _How can he not know?_ Why else would Tony be here if he genuinely doesn’t know about Peter’s college fuck ups, if he’s not here to break the news that Stark Industries can’t ever be linked with someone like him?

If Tony doesn’t know, somehow, then he can’t find out. “I can’t tell you. I can’t,” Peter stammers out.

Tony stares at him, eyes studying him carefully. Peter squirms under his gaze, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He still hasn’t stepped forward out of the doorway, but when a few people walk through the hall outside and crane their heads to peer in, he takes the smallest step forward he can manage and closes the door behind him with a thud.

He feels a lot more closed in now, just him and Tony in his tiny shoebox of a dorm.

“I thought we weren’t doing secrets anymore?” Tony asks. “Open communication, healthy family relationships? All the shit my therapist said to me after the snap. I know yours said the same.”

Peter worries his bottom lip between his teeth. He hopes Tony can’t see the way he’s shaking. For a split second, he toys with the idea of just telling him. Taking a deep breath and spilling everything, the fact that he’s failing his biological engineering class and that he can’t handle college. That he misses everyone at home like crazy, he’s lonely all the time and he feels like his mental health has taken a dramatic nosedive off a cliff.

But he doesn’t. The words feel heavy in his dry mouth. Instead, all that comes out is a sharp, “can we _not_ do this?”

He regrets his tone as soon as the words leave his mouth, but Tony doesn’t push harder or demand that he spill. Instead, the man just shrugs. “Okay. If that’s what you want. I didn’t drive all this way to argue, so if you don’t want to talk about it then we won’t.”

Peter practically reels back in surprise. He suddenly feels bad for losing his cool. “Um, okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, I’m just-”

“But you know what we do have to talk about?” Tony cuts in, waving off Peter’s awkward apology. “The state of this room. I thought I was paying for a single room, not for you to make the place so filthy that you could adopt a herd of cockroaches and rodents as roommates. I hope you’re charging them rent.”

“I’ve been busy,” is all Peter has to offer. Then, frowning, he adds, “and there aren’t _rodents_ in here.” He takes another tentative step forward into the room just as Tony leans down to toe an empty ramen cup out from under the bed. His nose wrinkles in disgust.

“What, too busy to take the two seconds to put your trash where it belongs?” he says, leaning over to his right to toss the cup into the garbage can by the door. “See? Didn’t even need to get off the bed.”

“Show off,” Peter mutters.

Tony grins at the snark. “Seriously, when was the last time you actually opened your eyes and looked at this place, Pete?”

Peter’s not sure. Usually, he’s far too preoccupied to be concerned with something as mundane as what sort of living standard he’s upholding in his dorm room. But when he does look around, there are more ramen cups everywhere, stacked on top of rare free surfaces, peeking out from under furniture. Scattered graphing paper screwed up into tight balls litter the carpet. His duvet is scrunched up in the corner of the room after he spilt coffee on it the other night and never got round to washing it. It’s been a bit cold the past few nights but whatever.

“Did you come all the way here to pick apart my room? Because we could have just video called for that.”

“You wouldn’t have picked up,” Tony says plainly.

“Wait, no, I-”

“Nope. No excuses. I came to see what was going on, whether I could help with anything,” he explains. “And I have found my calling - elevating you up out of this filth.”

“I don’t know if I have time for this, Tony. I have things to do. Assignments, _lots_ of assignments.”

“You can spare half an hour, kid.”

Peter relents.

It doesn’t actually even end up taking them that long. They clear out the mess of granola bar and burrito wrappers, ramen cups, old receipts and scrap paper that he’s let accumulate on the floor. Vacuum the carpet. Tidy the explosion of books and worksheets covering his desk. Make the bed - something Peter isn’t even sure he’s done since he first took the sheets out of their pack and put them on the mattress on his first night.

In the end, all it takes the two of them is twenty minutes and a couple of trips down to the trash chute at the end of the hall.

It puts Peter’s racing mind at ease a little bit, the monotony of it all, and as he tugs a final stray sock out from the bottom of his wardrobe to chuck into his laundry hamper, everything slips out and he reveals what he was so sure he desperately wanted to keep a secret.

It's probably been Tony’s plan this whole time, honestly.

“I don’t think I’m cut out for this, Tony.”

Tony looks up from where he’s shoving one of Peter’s windows open to let some air in. The hinges on it squeak as he does. “Cut out for what exactly? You mean cleaning? Because I’m with you on that one, bud, but this place really needed-”

“No, not that,” Peter says. He might laugh if he wasn’t so nervous. “This whole, um, this college thing.”

“What makes you say that?” Tony’s turned to face him now, leaning up against Peter’s desk in a fashion that Peter suspects is entirely faux-nonchalance.

“I just can’t do it. I suck at it.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Tony holds his hands up. “Slow it down there a little, kid. You don’t suck at it. I don’t think I’ve ever known you to not be able to do absolutely anything you put your mind to.”

Peter hates that. That is entirely his problem. So he tells Tony so. “That’s the whole thing though. Everyone thinks I’m super smart, like I’m meant to be flying through college, just like you did but I’m _not_. I can’t get anything right. I’m failing, Tony. _Failing_.”

Confusion is written all over Tony’s face. “Failing, what exactly?” he asks carefully. Peter bites down on his lip again. It’s already feeling kind of ragged. This was probably a mistake.

“My bioengineering paper. The ethics one.”

Tony furrows his eyebrows. His head cocks to one side a little as he thinks and Peter wonders whether he even realises he’s doing it. “Okay…” he sinks down back onto the newly-made bed, creasing the covers a little bit. “You wanna come sit down here for a minute? Have a chat?”

“I, uh, I think I’m good here.” Peter can’t bear the thought of letting himself get close only to be pushed away.

Tony shakes his head. There’s disappointment on his face, but not the kind that Peter was expecting. More like disappointment that Peter had even thought Tony would be mad in the first place, but he doesn’t quite understand that. How could Tony _not_ be upset? He’s trying his best to live up to everything wonderful about Tony Stark but he keeps falling short. He’s still just unlucky old Peter Parker.

“Get over here,” Tony says, but his words aren’t commanding. They’re reassuring. He pats the space beside him, and Peter makes the few short steps to perch himself next to Tony. The man wraps a steady arm around his shoulders. Peter tries to force himself to stay upright, back stiff. He can’t just lean into every touch that he gets from Tony, no matter how much he’s missed having him close. He’s not a kid anymore, after all. He’s a college student.

“Is this why you were ignoring me?”

“I dunno,” Peter mumbles. “I just didn’t want you to find out.”

Tony squeezes the nape of his neck gently and all of Peter’s resolve disappears. He crumbles against Tony’s side.

“I can’t do it, Tony. I can’t. I’m trying so hard, I promise. I spend like, every night in the library and I barely even sleep anymore trying to keep up but I just _can’t_. Every time I sit down it’s like I just freak out and I can’t concentrate.”

“Can’t concentrate how?”

“I’m just worried about everything all the time. Worried I won’t get things done on time. Worried I’m not smart enough to even do the work. Worried about impressing my professors… worried about impressing you,” Peter adds finally, under his breath.

Tony’s arm tightens around his shoulder at this, and he stares down at him with a sort of understanding dawning across his face that Peter can’t quite make sense of. “Have you been taking your meds?”

That throws Peter a little. Taking his meds? He’s not sick.

“It’s not like, the flu or something,” he says blatantly, not quite sure how Tony got it this wrong. “It’s all the time. I’m not sick, I don’t have an excuse. I’m just not smart enough for this.”

“No, no, no. Not like that, sorry,” Tony says gently. “Has it occurred to you that maybe your anxiety might be acting up?”

Peter frowns, shaking his head. They sorted out all the issues he was having with his anxiety a few months after the reversal of the snap. He took the medication that Tony and Bruce synthesized for him for a while and that was that. Nothing overly traumatic in his life has happened since then. He shouldn’t need them anymore. He’s better.

“No, no, that was just when I got back from the snap. This is just college. Everyone does college.”

Tony takes a second to consider his words. When he speaks, it's careful and calm. “I’m no expert, bud, but your anxiety isn’t just going to disappear like that. It’ll come and go. Plus, sure, you’re right. Everyone does college-” Peter’s stomach knots nervously as Tony says that. He can’t help but feel that any moment now will be the moment that Tony turns around and tells him that he should be better. “- _But_ , not everyone does college with as much pressure on their shoulders as you put on yourself. That’s a Peter Parker exclusive. You don’t have to be the best at everything all the time.”

“I _do_. You were. How am I ever going to take over Stark Industries one day like you want me to if I can’t even pass _Ethics in Engineering_? Bruce told me to take that as a _fun_ paper.”

Tony winces at that. They really should have phrased it better.

“You don’t want to know how many classes I failed because I was too constantly hungover for even Rhodey to force me out of bed, Pete. The real world isn’t dependent on passing or failing. One class isn’t going to matter, even if I’ve got total faith in your ability to turn it all around before the end of the semester,” Tony says. Then he pauses. He looks over at Peter again and Peter can practically see the gears turning in his head. “Unless college isn’t something you want to do? Because it isn’t for everyone. You don’t need a degree, not really. You can already outrun me in the lab and Pep could teach you double the stuff you'd need to know about the business side in half the time, probably.”

“No, I want to do this. I do,” Peter says after a moment. He’s telling the truth. He wants a degree, he wants to see this through and come out the other side - just preferably not feeling like he does now. “I just wanted to make you proud of me at the same time. I... I've really messed that part up. How can you be proud of a failure?”

Tony sucks in a sharp breath at Peter’s words. His face twists like they've physically hurt him. “See, now I can see where we’ve gone wrong here. I’m always proud of you. Completely unconditionally and unequivocally. You don’t need to graduate as valedictorian to make me proud. All I want you to do is grow up into the best man you’re capable of being and you’re already doing that, buddy - far too quickly for my liking, I might add. You’ll be taller than me soon.”

“That’s not hard,” Peter murmurs before he can help himself and Tony snorts.

“There he is. Hijacking my sappy dad speech to make a cheap joke about my height. I see how it is.”

* * *

Peter sits cross-legged on his neatly-made bed later that night.

Tony’s sitting on the desk chair on the other side of the room, thumbing through his phone. “I’m ordering pizza. I’m not braving a college dining hall, I’ve been there, done that, and _you_ need a proper meal. You want pepperoni?”

“I’m kinda feeling a Hawaiian tonight, to be honest.”

“You disgust me,” Tony retorts immediately but he returns his attention to his phone anyway, likely doing exactly as Peter’s asked.

He reaches over to grab the nanoelectronics textbook from his bedside table where he’d left it last night, all his unfinished work still piling up in the front of his mind, despite Tony’s reassuring presence. Before he can draw it off the nightstand and into his lap though, Tony’s hand closes around his wrist and shoves it away. He gathers the textbook up into his own arms and adds it to the neat pile they formed on his desk while they were cleaning.

“I kinda need those,” Peter protests. All he gets in response from Tony is a stern shake of the head.

“Not right now you don’t. Not a chance. What you need is a nap. I’m gonna sort through this and figure out a game plan for us to tackle all of this tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to help me,” Peter protests, no matter how appealing it sounds to have someone by his side to help him sort through the slog of his schoolwork. He wonders whether this is what it would have been like if he didn’t inadvertently shut Ned out in favour of desperately trying to get everything done.

“What? You think I’m just gonna sit around and watch you flail about and try to sort it yourself? What sort of parent would that make me?”

Once upon a time, maybe that word would have made the two of them freeze uncomfortably. Even now, they just stare at each other for a long moment. They’re family, indisputably, but even then the whole 'parent' word doesn’t get thrown around a whole lot. Peter thinks Tony’s still scared of stepping on the toes of dead people. Personally, he’s sure his parents would be glad that he’s got people in his corner apart from just May looking out for him. Especially Tony. Tony does a good job of it. 

“I guess you’re right,” Peter offers. “That would probably make you a pretty shitty parent.”

Tony grins, tinted with relief. “You got that right. So I wanna see that head on that uncomfortable looking pillow of yours for a little while, okay?” Tony commands, leaning over to press a quick kiss to Peter’s temple. “Just sleep.”

Peter does.

* * *

By the time Peter’s woken up by the smell of takeaway pizza filling the small space, Tony’s used his class planner and assignment schedule to organise his workbooks into piles of urgency on his desk - what needs to be completed right now and what can wait. He’s also listed everything on the whiteboard and is in the middle of removing every single can of Red Bull from Peter’s minifridge.

“Hey,” Peter grumbles blearily. “Mine.”

“Nope. Not anymore. They’ll rot your teeth. If you need your caffeine fix then just drink coffee like a real man. None of this sugary rubbish.” Tony tosses the four cans he has in his hands into the trash and reaches back in to grab the last few.

Peter snickers. “You sound like Gale.”

“Who the hell is Gale?”

“Our elderly librarian. She’s very nice.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re on a first-name basis with the _librarian_?" Tony asks incredulously. "And second of all, I entirely resent being compared to someone you labelled as elderly, thank you very much.”

Peter grins. “I mean, if the shoe fits.”

“I’ve changed my mind all of a sudden. I haven’t missed you at all.” Tony's words are punctuated with an affectionate ruffle of Peter’s hair, and Peter knows that he doesn’t actually mean a word of it.

For the first time since this tiny little dorm room has become his home, he can breathe. Tony’s here.

Everything is always okay when Tony’s here.

**Author's Note:**

> (nothing has made me sympathise with my high school english teacher who used to resent me for not being able to stick to a word limit more than having to go back through and edit my own work. this was meant to be 4k at the absolute max. i have a problem)
> 
> thank you for reading! comments and thoughts are appreciated!
> 
> title from 'hold it down' - noah kahan
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](https://searchingforstarss.tumblr.com/)!


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